Richard Norton-Taylor

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Richard Norton-Taylor |Alex Atack |Rudi Zygadlo |Sami Kent |Elizabeth Cassin

On Monday, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, told Britain it was facing threats that were “more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the cold war”. It was time, he said, to make Britain a “battle-ready, armour-clad nation”. As the government publishes its strategic defence review, the former Guardian security editor Richard Norton-Taylor tells Helen Pidd there are still serious questions over whether Britain is ready for this new era.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Richard Norton-Taylor

The journalist, author and broadcaster Duncan Campbell, who has died aged 80 from lymphoma, was the most respected crime correspondent of his generation. The determined, scrupulously fair way he pursued evidence of wrongdoing, including miscarriages of justice by the police and prosecuting authorities, was widely admired.

2 months ago | declassifieduk.org | Richard Norton-Taylor

Documents on the Duke of York’s time as a taxpayer-funded trade envoy are being blocked from public scrutiny Prince Andrew meets King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a State Banquet in London, 2007. (Photo: Anwar Hussein / Alamy)The British government is refusing to release documents about Prince Andrew’s past role as a trade envoy in the Middle East, it has emerged.

Mar 21, 2025 | theguardian.com | Richard Norton-Taylor

For more than a decade the senior KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, who has died aged 86, spied for MI6 before escaping execution by being dramatically smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the boot of a car. He was the highest ranking KGB officer to defect to Britain, and his most important contribution as a spy was to warn Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan of the Soviet leadership’s paranoia at a time when the world was moving dangerously close to nuclear war.

Mar 10, 2025 | theguardian.com | Richard Norton-Taylor

Two days after he met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at his Sandringham estate, King Charles was photographed on the bridge of HMS Prince of Wales. It was a clever move by the navy’s top brass to invite him. They know that the aircraft carrier, and her sister, HMS Queen Elizabeth, are being questioned as luxuries Britain can ill afford. They are completely unsuited to modern warfare.